Starwood Hotels and Resorts plans to broaden its Thai hotel-management portfolio to 19 hotels by 2008 in an effort to cover all main markets and cash in on further expansion in the industry.

Starwood now manages 13 hotels in the region. Aside from two in Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi, the remaining 11 are in major Thai tourist centres: Bangkok, Pattaya, Krabi, Phuket and Khao Lak.

Eight new hotels in the Kingdom will expand by 2,000 the number of hotel rooms under the company's management here.

The properties under development are W Retreat & Residences Koh Samui, five Le Meridien hotels - in Bangkok, Chiang Mai, Chiang Rai, Pattaya and at Suvarnabhumi Airport - a Luxury Collection Hotel on Koh Samui and a Sheraton in Hua Hin. All are four- and five-star hotels.

The group is also planning to manage Four Points by Sheraton Angkor of Cambodia. The hotel is scheduled to open in 2009 and will feature 150 rooms.

Wayne Buckingham, regional vice president for Thailand, Vietnam and Cambodia and managing director of the Royal Orchid Sheraton Hotel and Towers Bangkok, believes that the hotel business in Thailand will continue to grow, as the country has been famous for a long time for its hospitality.

"It is expected that more than 3,000 new rooms will be opened in Bangkok in the next few months. Meanwhile hotels in Phuket and along the Andaman coast are recovering after struggling following the tsunami," said Buckingham.

However he cautioned that the hotel business in Bangkok this year would not be better than last year due to negative news following the New Year's Eve bombings. Moreover, the revised Foreign Investment Law has caused some foreign investors to postpone or halt their projects in Bangkok.

"We are going to manage hotels instead of making direct investments, as the group specialises in management.

"However, we are investing in key markets, including the Royal Orchid Sheraton," Buckingham said.

Among the new projects, Le Meridien Chiang Rai Resort will be located along the Kok River, a branch of the Mekong. Le Méridien Bangkok will be in the central business hub of Bangkok. The 282-room hotel will also feature a separate spa. Le Méridien Chiang Mai will be next to the famous Night Bazaar and the main shopping district at Chiang Mai, with 391 rooms.

Le Méridien Suvarnabhumi Golf Resort & Spa, opening in July 2008, will be one of the first international hotels to be built in the area of the new Bangkok International Airport. The 220-room golf resort and spa will be located in Samut Prakan province. Le Méridien Pattaya Resort will feature 239 rooms.

W Retreat & Residences, Koh Samui, a new brand in Thailand, will consist of 75 villas.

The Luxury Collection is also scheduled to open on the island. Sheraton Hua Hin Resort will feature 240 rooms, including 80 lagoon villas.

Buckingham added that the group established a regional office in Bangkok a few years ago in order to monitor all of its operations in the region.

He said the group has been expanding into many hotels in different brands because it wants to change the group's image from hotel management to a new so-called lifestyle company, which offers guests a greater variety of services.

Suchat Sritama

The Nation